Gabriel Ash

Important new details of the U.S.-Israeli espionage case involving Larry Franklin, the alleged Pentagon spy, two officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, and an intelligence official at the Embassy of Israel emerged last week. Two AIPAC officials—who have left the organization—were indicted along with Franklin on charges of "communicat[ing] national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it." In plain English, if not legal-speak, that means spying.

But as the full text of the indictment makes clear, the conspiracy involved not just Franklin and the AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, but at least several other Pentagon officials who played intermediary roles, at least two other Israeli officials, and one official at a "Washington, D.C. think tank." It's an old-fashioned spy story involving the passing of secret documents, hush-hush meetings and outright espionage, along with good-old-boy networking.

The L.A. Times had this week two op-eds on Hiroshima. That's way above average; the NY Times, for example, had none. Instead, the NY Times editors managed to harness the August 6 holocaust to score a political cheap shot in support of the White House policy of defending its nuclear supremacy.

Back to the LA Times. In The Myth of Hiroshima Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, authors of a biography of Robert Oppenheimar, review briefly the reasons why the common justifications for the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are wrong: the bombs were not the cause of the Japanese surrender, they didn't save lives, etc.

While it's good to see the LA Times correct the historical record on such an important national myth, I am somewhat disappointed by the lackluster op-ed. So many words have been written about the subject by so many gifted writers. One feels the LA editors didn't put their heart into the matter. That's sad, especially because they did manage to find a very good writer to justify the bombing of Hiroshima.

Tricked into enlisting, US soldier found most soldiers would rather self-mutilate than serve in Iraq.

Dateline: Sunday, July 24, 2005
as told by Joshua Key, and written up by Annick Cojean for Le Monde, translation at straightgoods.ca

I am a deserter.

One morning in December, 2003, I put my family into an old car, bought for $600, and left the military base in Colorado Springs, where I was on leave. I did not want to return to Iraq. I did not want to participate in this war based on lies. I did not want to kill any Iraqi civilians. I did not want to participate in the slaughter. I understand my fellow citizens consider me a coward and a traitor. But I don't give a damn. To each his own conscience. I also know that I will never benefit from an amnesty. When one is in the military one does not desert. But I take responsibility for this. I can live with this. Not with Iraq.

Reuters: The plot in the Pentagon analyst/AIPAC scandal is about to thicken:
U.S. prosecutors plan to announce additional charges on Thursday against a Defense Department analyst accused of illegally disclosing classified defense information, and to charge two former officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, government sources said.

The additional charges involve Lawrence Franklin, a Pentagon analyst already accused of giving the information to two former employees of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the two sources said.

A Jewish Israeli man in Israel Defense Forces uniform opened fire on bus passengers in a Druze neighborhood of the Israeli Arab town of Shfaram Thursday afternoon. Four people and the gunman were killed and 12 wounded, two of them moderately.

Security forces said the shooting was apparently a Jewish terror attack and that the attacker was a newly religious man, an IDF deserter, from the West Bank settlement of Tapuah. Security forces said the gunman, Eran Tzuberi, 19, was a member of the outlawed right-wing extremist Kach movement. Tzuberi, who went AWOL a year ago, recently moved to the West Bank from Rishon Letzion.

The board of The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) has voted unanimously to reverse an earlier decision to give its annual Conscience in Media award to jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, E&P has learned.

The group's First Amendment committee had narrowly voted to give Miller the prize for her dedication to protecting sources, but the full board has now voted to overturn that decision, based on its opinion that her entire career, and even her current actions in the Plame/CIA leak case, cast doubt on her credentials for this award.

The goodness of Israel is on display again.
The crossings to be built in Jerusalem as part of the separation fence will actually improve the lives of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the city's police chief Ilan Franco has claimed.

During a High Court of Justice hearing yesterday on the separation fence, Franco told the court that "these are crossings, not the checkpoints we're used to seeing in the territories manned by three or four soldiers. The crossings will not only not harm the residents' lives - but will improve them."

Avid surfers from several Gush Katif communities are threatening to take their boards out to sea on evacuation day and commit mass suicide by drowning. Settlement secretariats, psychologists and social workers have known about the plans of these young men, aged 16-21, for several weeks.